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Oct 24 2021
Cross-country Comparisons
By:
Scott Sumner
I often have conservations with people about protectionism. One common complaint I hear is that America is a free trader that plays by the rules, whereas foreign countries are protectionist and don't play by the rules. In fact, the exact opposite is more nearly true. In a recent post, I pointed out that the US has t...
Oct 22 2021
Liberty
By:
David Henderson
I’ve been following economic policy closely since Richard Nixon’s assault on economic freedom with his August 15, 1971, economywide price controls. While there have been ebbs and flows in economic freedom in the fifty years since then, I have never seen anything like the full court press against economic freedom ex...
Oct 22 2021
Business Cycles
By:
Walter Block
Read Part 1 here. There have been numerous instances of people being bitten by coyotes in Stanley Park, the Jewel in the crown of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPES) and the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation together run, own, and manage this massive 1,000 acre...
Oct 22 2021
Politics and Economics
By:
Scott Sumner
In a recent post, I discussed some reasons why political polarization has become much worse in recent years. In the comment section, I was startled to see people deny that polarization had actually become much worse. (Perhaps some commenters are too young to recall the 20th century.) In any case, a recent article...
Oct 21 2021
Labor Market
By:
David Henderson
Today I received an email from a friend, Christopher Jehn. We became friends at a party at Richard Thaler’s house in Rochester in the fall of 1977 when we learned that we were strong allies on the fight to keep the all-volunteer force (AVF) and avoid returning to the draft. We have kept in touch on these issues since...
Oct 21 2021
Behavioral Economics
By:
Bryan Caplan
When I play Sid Meier's Civilization, as I have thousands of times, I have an eccentric strategy. When other civilizations demand tribute - or just attack me with without provocation - I give them what they want. I sue for peace. And then, I propose an alliance. The AI almost always accepts the offer - and...
Oct 20 2021
Foreign Policy
By:
Scott Sumner
The FT points out that US businesses wish to cooperate with China while the politicians in both parties want to compete: America’s public and private elites are no longer as one on China, if they ever were. In Washington, vigilance to Beijing is the nearest thing there is to a bipartisan verity. Democrats, no less t...
Revisit Bryan Caplan's Case at EconTalk:
Feb 12 2018
Education
Bryan Caplan of George Mason University and the author of The Case Against Education talks about the book with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Caplan argues that very little learning takes place in formal education and that very little of the return to college comes from skills or knowledge that is acquired in the classroo...
Oct 20 2021
Behavioral Economics
By:
Bryan Caplan
Co: Why did they pick you? Because you like to fight? Rambo: I'm expendable. Co: What mean expendable? Rambo: It's like someone invites you to a party and you don't show up. It doesn't really matter. --Rambo: First Blood, Part II "Leave no man behind." This slogan is the peak of military romantic...
Oct 19 2021
Economics of Health Care
By:
David Henderson
It’s important to address two criticisms of our work. The first is that we exaggerated the FDA’s warning on ivermectin. The second is that Merck’s stance on ivermectin proved that even the company that developed ivermectin thought that it doesn’t work for Covid-19. First, we didn’t exaggerate the FDA’s w...
Oct 19 2021
Economics of Education
By:
Bryan Caplan
My Ph.D. Micro teacher, David Card, won the Nobel Prize last week. My best-known piece on Card examines the tension between his research on the minimum wage and his research on immigration. My most extensive discussion of his work and intellectual influence, however, appears in Chapter 3 of The Case Against Educati...
Oct 18 2021
Central Planning
By:
Veronique de Rugy
The Biden administration intends to nominate for Comptroller of the Currency a candidate who makes Senator Bernie Sanders looks like former Senator Barry Goldwater. The nominee’s name is Saule Omarova, a professor at the Cornell University Law School. Apart from wanting to regulate banks out of existence, Ms. Omarova...
Oct 18 2021
Foreign Policy
By:
Scott Sumner
This tweet made me shake my head in disbelief: NATO is arguably the most successful peacekeeping alliance in all of world history. Because NATO as a whole has far more military power than the rest of the world combined, any country would be crazy to invade a NATO member. It has kept its members safe for more...
Oct 18 2021
Economic Philosophy
By:
Bryan Caplan
1. Tomorrow, October 19, I'm virtually visiting Hungary to debate immigration with Balázs Orbán and András Kováts. Airing live at 11 AM ET, 5 PM Hungarian time. Here's Orbán's (not that Orbán, but they do work together) take on Facebook: 2. October 28, I'm physically visiting the University Chicago to ...
Oct 18 2021
Liberty
By:
Pierre Lemieux
An interesting essay in Saturday's Wall Street Journal suggests, if we go farther than the author, that "the simplicity of our system of government," although a worthy ideal, has become a mere historical memory if not a propaganda tool for the democratic Leviathan. The story is about Andrew Jackson who, before his deat...
Oct 17 2021
Economic Methods
By:
David Henderson
As in the original Card and Krueger survey, the administrative data show a slight decline in the employment from February to November 1992 in Pennsylvania, and little change in New Jersey over the same time period. However, the data also reveals substantial year to year employment variations in other period. In particu...